Best places to advertise - Saskatoon

[Nicola]

Hello,



Can anyone suggest some good places to advertise a suite for rent in Saskatoon?



Thanks!

Nicola

 

[bradyloewen]

We have got good response through kijiji. There is definitely a lot of renters that turn to kijiji...and it's free to post and search.

Kijiji is also a good spot to get rent comparisons.



Rentspot is another free search site, but will cost about $7/month to post.



If you have a property near a secondary school and are targeting students you might want to contact the school (SIAST, UofS etc.) to see if they have a public board/web to post such listings. Same goes for hospitals - ie, nurses.



If you are doing an executive rental, getting in contact with some of the bigger company's (BHP, AMEC, PCS, etc) HR department might land you something.



My wife and I currently live and invest in Saskatoon. We'd be interested in touching base with you to share any info that might help one another out.



Good Luck!!



Brady

 

[Nicola]

Hi Brady,



Thanks for the reply and suggestions. Kijiji is great, but I have to rely on my PM to keep updating it, as I can't post on it from overseas (Seoul).



How have you found Rentspot as a place to advertise? It looks like there are a lot of apartment buildings, and also some ads that are probably out of date.



I've put an ad for my basement suite on rentboard.ca, which has had quite a lot of hits, but I'm not sure if that's following through into people calling my property manager.



I know the vacancy rate is low in Saskatoon - how easy are you finding it to get good tenants?



Do you self-manage or have a property manager?



Thanks,

Nicola

 

[Cory Sperle]

I paid the money and used the Star Phoenix, never had much luck on Kijiji and for many folks it is still easier to grab the paper and go instead of searching on their smart phones.

 

[Nicola]

Hi Cory,



Thanks for that. The StarPhoenix worked out well? Did you do print or online or both?



Could you give an example of how you wrote your ad (since you're limited to "4 lines in print" - not quite sure what that means exactly).



Thanks!

Nicola

 

[bradyloewen]

Hi Nicola,



Right now we are self managing. We currently have one property coming up for rent July 1st and had an "open house" with showings yesterday. Only 2 of the 5 groups showed up, so the list is smaller now, but still have some time to find the best match for us/ the property.



I haven't used rentspot to advertise, just use it for comps.



We are going to switch up our ad on Kijiji to include something alongs the line of:



"Please respond to the following three:



1) Tell us the number of tenants and there ages

2) Places of employment and for how long

3) Why are you currently moving



We will only respond to those who give us the above information."



We find people can be quit lazy with some of their responses and are hoping this will ween those ones out.

 

[kfort]

[quote user=CorySperle] I paid the money and used the Star Phoenix, never had much luck on Kijiji and for many folks it is still easier to grab the paper and go instead of searching on their smart phones.



I have to respectfully disagree with this. Though it does depend on your tenant profile. When I want to know what a poorly maintained 2 bedroom main floor rents for I look in the paper. If you are advertising here you are missing 95% (or more!!) of people below the age of 50 who are currently employed. I've never met an applicant under 40 who even looks at the paper when searching for a place to rent.









Locally there is little other than kijiji that will be required to rent your unit. I would estimate that 95% of all privately rented (and many management co's) units are filled through kijiji. If you don't use it you're making things harder than they need to be unless you are targeting seniors downsizing to rent a apt style condo with an elevator.